What's the best junkyard upgrade that you've done to your car?

I found an Alpine Head Unit for $22.50 that's currently pumping out CBC Radio 1 in my Dad's Toyota Echo. Stock photo below of the head unit. So what about you guys? Major or minor, it's time to show off your best Junkyard Upgrade!

Well, my '92 Voyager 5-speed came with the base gauge cluster. For $20, I got a Grand Caravan cluster with all the gauges, and it was plug-n-play.

had an '88 BMW 325 SuperETA. It made 110hp on the dyno, which is consistent with the 127hp it was rated at.

I put a complete cylinder-head/intake/ecu on it from a dead '87 325is, and some 19lb injectors from a ford 5.0. Then it dyno'd 155hp and 162lb/ft of torque.

So, roughly a 30% increase, naturally aspirated, with salvage yard OE parts.

My '88 Celebrity Wagon had bad wind noise. I noticed dad's Buick had door seals on the door AND the frame. So I went to the yard and took all the door frame seals off another A-body. Adhered them to the doors of my wagon, and BAM no more wind noise. Cost = $5 + adhesive.

Also got flat black shifter and signal stalks to replace my crappy broken chrome ones on that trip. Aww yeah sporty GM flat black trim.

I do better on Kijiji than scrapyards.

$100 for a full set of Golf VR6 suspension with only 10k kms. PO went coilovers when his car was virtually brand new.

Blitz supercharger setup for first gen scion xb, total price, $150. I planned on installing it onto the daily but was offered $800 for it, I sometimes wonder if I made the correct decision.

Zq8 steering box in the s10, or fast ratio jeep grand Cherokee box in the elky.

Also up there is bigger brakes and sway bars. All if the above sourced from pullapart

belteshazzar wrote: had an '88 BMW 325 SuperETA. It made 110hp on the dyno, which is consistent with the 127hp it was rated at. I put a complete cylinder-head/intake/ecu on it from a dead '87 325is, and some 19lb injectors from a ford 5.0. Then it dyno'd 155hp and 162lb/ft of torque. So, roughly a 30% increase, naturally aspirated, with salvage yard OE parts.

I put a junkyard Ford 5.0 from a '90 Lincoln Mk. VII in my '87 Eta. Roughly 250% increase in horsepower.

WEll, not technically junkyard, but outsourcing was the common thing to do with the old Elantra. Tiburon suspension bits, Honda Accord cold air intakes, Sonata rotors, GK tib calipers/pads for a front brake upgrade etc.

The Forte is going to get some Optima SX rotors/calipers this winter. 12.7" rotors FTW!

I grabbed a Supra AFM for my 85 Celica GT-S. Plug and play, an extra inch of flow, and it was the perfect size for a huge cone filter. Apparently, all the off-road 4Runner guys like them too for their 22R engines.

I took my uncle's old 1985 Tercel to the junkyard and upgraded my wallet by $50. That was awesome.

I prefer CBC 2 but my best upgrade was 1st gen rx7 steering wheel for my 2nd gen rx7 and then Taurus SHO fans for my suburban. Best personal upgrade was various tools laying around.

I was walking through a junkyard and found a Pontiac distributor half buried in dry mud. I dug it out and got it free. Turns out it was stuffed with a Pertronix trigger.

I once grabbed a wheezer 350 from a van for $250 to build and it had a retrofit roller cam setup in it worth about $800

Brilliantly perfect HEI from a van for $20

Swaybars, brackets, end links front and rear from a '96 burb for my GMC project for like $44 as compared to the $300 aftermarket stuff that would have probably not worked as well.

Oh, and Curtis can attest to this, taking stuff from a van in the JY is amazing. We pulled it in the rain, and we were nice and dry and toasty in there.

Explorer leaf springs (1 additional leaf over stock) in my Ranger. I'm planning on an Explorer rear axle, too.

Bottom half of an 850 turbo's air filter box to replace the hot air valve equipped bottom half of my N/A 850's air filter box, for free.

I used said air filter box to transport a lot of little switches, pig tails, relays etc. while scavenging at Pick-n-Pull. Had I bought all of those little parts on eBay it would have been over $100 easily. I got to the counter, with the air filter box full of little stuff, and I had a pair of headlight lenses on top of the box. Cashier picked up the headlight lenses, dug around in the air filter box a little, set the lenses back down, and then charged me for the lenses and a few other larger items I had. Box and contents were free.

In reply to bigdaddylee82:

Nice!

Swapped an SJ-410s fold-down windshield hardware onto my SJ-413 Samurai. For free!

In reply to ebonyandivory:

Cool!

Explorer GT40p cylinder heads. Pulled em for $70, sold them for $180 un touched. Then used that money and a set of springs I got for free to pick up a re-worked set of GT40p heads with upgraded valve springs

Fuel composition sensor in my Ranger crapped out. This is a $700 piece built by Raytheon. I got one out of a Taurus for $7.

In reply to Bumboclaat:

Berkeley Yeah!

In reply to GCooper: Nice!

my old Volvo 850 came to me cheap due to the previous owner having a dog that ate the interior. $100 later and I walked out with front and rear seats, all four door cards, arm rest, and dashboard with airbag